Eva Herrmann

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Eva Herrmann (born February 8, 1901 in Munich ; † September 7, 1978 in Santa Barbara ) was a German-American painter , draftsman and caricaturist .

Life

Eva Herrmann was born the daughter of a wealthy American painter and a German. Both parents were of Jewish origin. The mother Anna, née Schlesinger (1875–1944) perished in Auschwitz. The father Frank S. Herrmann (1866–1942) studied at the Munich Art Academy at the end of the 19th century . Eva's sister Thea married the Austrian painter Wilhelm Thöny for the second time . During her time in Munich, she became a close friend of the siblings Erika Mann and Klaus Mann .

In 1919 she accompanied her father to the USA , lived in New York , but returned to Europe for more or less long stays. In the early 1920s she lived in Berlin and became the partner of Johannes R. Becher , with whom she lived in her studio on Claudiusstrasse. She spent the summer of 1923 with Becher in Wittdün on the North Sea island of Amrum . For a while she was the friend of Ricki Hallgarten , also a childhood friend of Klaus and Erika Mann.

In the USA, Eva Herrmann became a popular and busy portrait caricaturist in the mid-1920s thanks to her stylistic and technical versatility. Her work has been reprinted in numerous newspapers and magazines. She kept in contact with Klaus and Erika Mann, the three of whom celebrated Klaus' 21st birthday together in New York in 1927. The 28-year-old artist's breakthrough came with the book On Parade , published in 1929 , which contained a collection of portraits of well-known American writers. But other well-known artists, directors and scientists were also portrayed by her. "This woman's style cannot be compared to any of her colleagues: it is narrative, occasionally playful and almost youthful in its appearance."

Between 1932 and 1939 Herrmann traveled through Europe, portrayed the most famous faces of their time, including Bertolt Brecht , George Bernard Shaw and Aldous Huxley, and immediately sent the work to their editorial offices in the USA. She spent a long time in Sanary-sur-Mer in the south of France , where u. a. the Mann family lived in exile . Her lifelong friendship with Sybille Bedford , who lived in Sanary u. a. was with her significantly older sister Maximiliane von Dincklage, who, as the wife of the Nazi secret agent Hans Günther von Dincklage, was also a spy for the Nazi security service of the Reichsführer SS .

In 1935 Herrmann became the lover of the writer Lion Feuchtwanger and traveled with him to Moscow. Feuchtwanger advocated that Herrmann should design his books at his publishing house in exile there.

After moving to Santa Barbara, Eva Herrmann's house was the meeting place for the German writers in exile, and none of the visitors left the house without caricature. The Mann family lived nearby. Thomas Mann called it “the Gem” because it reminded him of Theodor Fontane's “ Mathilde Möhring ” because of its profile . And Klaus and Erika Mann wrote about her: "This delicate and pretty young lady knows how to be colossally malicious without becoming clumsy and offensive". She conducted a lively correspondence with Golo Mann . About a dozen letters from Golo Mann have been received from 1936–1977, but no counter-letters. The Feuchtwanger family found their first admission in 1940, after they had fled Europe.

“She was a witness of exile. Hardly any German writer who found refuge in California escaped her pen. She has also tackled painters and musicians, actors and directors, philosophers and scientists, and occasionally even politicians or union leaders [...] "

Eva Herrmann was interested in astrology and believed in supernatural perceptions throughout her life . In 1941 she attended a spiritualistic session for the first time and dealt with parapsychological phenomena . With increasing age she turned to her spiritualistic interests. As a medium , she recorded dictations from deceased personalities, which she published from 1976 under the title Von drüben and in which a post-mortem afterword by Thomas Mann is printed.

Fonts

  • Eric Posselt (Ed.) Eva Herrmann: “On parade” - caricatures. Coward-McCann, 1929.
  • From over there I: messages, information, practical advice (transmitted by Eva Herrmann, with a post-mortem afterword by Thomas Mann). Otto Reichl, Remagen 1993, ISBN 3-87667-046-2 .
  • From over there II: Further communications and discussions (transmitted by Eva Herrmann). Otto Reichl, Remagen 1999, ISBN 3-87667-053-5 .
  • Josefa Metz , Eva Herrmann: Kasperl on the move. Munich prints, Munich 1924.
  • In what is eternal. Quaker house, Bad Pyrmont 1970.

literature

  • Marie-Luise Hahn: Eva Herrmann: Drawings (portraits by Bertolt Brecht, Albert Einstein, Lion Feuchtwanger, Joseph Roth). German Exile Archive 1933–1945, German Library, Frankfurt am Main 2001.
  • Heinz J. Armbrust, Gert Heine: Who is who in Thomas Mann's life? A dictionary of persons. Vittorio Klostermann, Frankfurt am Main 2008, ISBN 978-3-465-03558-9 , p. 106.
  • Anita Overwien-Neuhaus Thomas Lambertz: Eva Herrmann: Witness to Exile. Galerie ON, Cologne 1995.
  • Manfred Flügge: Muse of Exile - The life of the painter Eva Herrmann. Insel, Berlin 2012, ISBN 978-3-458-17550-6 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Manfred Flügge: Muse of Exile - The life of the painter Eva Herrmann. Insel, Berlin 2012, p. 21, p. 414.
  2. ↑ Stephen D. Becker: Comic art in America: a social history of the funnies, the political cartoons, magazine humor, sporting cartoons, and animated cartoons. Simon and Schuster, 1959, p. 149.
  3. ↑ Flügge, Manfred: Muse of Exile: The life of the painter Eva Herrmann. Berlin, Insel 2012, ISBN 978-3-458-17550-6 , p. 135.
  4. ↑ Chapter 4: “The best of man are premonitions. And she has such a profile, gem, strict and noble and a small flaw on the eye and ash-blonde. "
  5. ↑ Armin Strohmeyr : Klaus Mann. dtv, Munich 2000, ISBN 3-423-31031-6 , p. 122.
  6. ↑ Andreas Rossmann : The gentle impudence of Eva Herrmann A formidable find: caricatures from the time of exile. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung . September 23, 1995, p. B 6.
personal data
SURNAME Herrmann, Eva
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German-American painter, draftsman and caricaturist
DATE OF BIRTH February 8, 1901
PLACE OF BIRTH Munich
DATE OF DEATH September 7, 1978
Place of death Santa Barbara